Biochemical engineering cell cultures

Whole cells are grown for a variety of reasons. The cells may perform a desired transformation of the substrate, e.g., wastewater treatment the cells themselves may be the desired produce, e.g., yeast production or the cells may produce a desired product, e.g., penicillin. In the later case, the desired product may be excreted, as for the penicillin example, and recovered in relatively simple fashion. If the desired product is retained within the cell walls, it is necessary to lyse (rupture) the cells and recover the product from a complex mixture of cellular proteins. This approach is often needed for therapeutic proteins that are created by recombinant DNA technology. The resulting separation problem is one of the more challenging aspects of biochemical engineering. However, culture of the cells can be quite difficult experimentally and is even more demanding theoretically. 

Producing the kilograms of tPA necessary to satisfy the world s therapeutic needs requires the special skills possessed by modern biochemical engineers. Sophisticated engineering of the fermentation vessels, culturing conditions, and media compositions is required to culture thousands of liters of mammalian cells. In addition, new extremes of purity must be achieved in order to assure the safety of proteins derived from mammalian cells. The cost of the starting materials and the capacity constraints of the present-day equipment require that yields from each fermentation batch be as high as possible. 

Reinhard, E. and Alfermann, A. W. 1980. Biotransformation by plant cells. In Advances in Biochemical Engineering 16. Plant Cell Cultures I. (Fiechter, A., ed.), pp. 49-83. Berlin Springer-Verlag. 

Wilson, G., "Continuous Culture of Plant Cells Using the Chemostat Principle," in Advances in Biochemical Engineering, Vol. 16, Ed. A. Fiechter, New York Springer-Verlag, 1980, pp. 1-25. 

Tabata H. Paclitaxel production by plant-cell-culture technology. Adv. Biochem. Engin. Biotechnol. 2004 7 1-23. 

Prokop A Rosenburg MZ (1989) Bioreactor for mammalian cell culture. Advances in Biochemical Engineering Biotechnology 39 29-71. 

Ray NG, Tung AS, Hayman EG, Vournakis JN Runstadler PW Jr (1990) Continuous cell culture in fluidized bed reactors cultivation of hybridomas and recombinant CHO cells immobilised in collagen microspheres. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Biochemical Engineering VI 589 443-457. 

Advances in Biochemical Engineering 16. Plant Cell Cultures /. Berlin Springer-Verlag 1980. p. 49-83. 

Prestwich G D (2007), Simplifying the extracellular matrix for 3-D cell culture and tissue engineering a pragmatic approach , J Cell Biochem, 101, 1370-83. 

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